An Update on my Writing Progress

Lots to come in the next year

Posted on July 15, 2019 by Jim

I’ve recently had several emails from readers asking me when my next book will be out, so I thought it would be good to issue a general update on what I've been doing since publishing Never Dead Enough in 2017.

During the latter half of 2017 I wrote The Witch of Val d’Ossa, a fantasy set in a regency era fictitious city named Val d’Ossa. Unfortunately, my beta readers were critical of it; not that they thought it was bad, but as one reader told me, "I just didn't care about the characters." Darn!

That's one of the most important criticisms a writer needs to hear, and the one they least want to hear. However, I still think it's a good story, so I just need to tell it properly. Based on comments from my betas, I think I need to split the book into two separate novels and go into more detail on the characters and their backgrounds, something I can probably do with about six months of work.

Following that I sat down and wrote A Hymn for the Dying, the first book in a new military Sci-Fi series called The Blacksword Regiment. I finished it and am submitting it to publishers. But I haven't been idle, and while waiting to hear from them I've been writing up a storm.  I finished A Dirge for the Damned, the second book in the series, and started on A Prayer for the Fallen, the third book, which should be complete some time in the next six months. My wife and my beta readers feel that this is some of my best work, akin to A Choice of Treasons.

In the middle of all this, I also wrote Tranquility Lost, A Commonwealth Re-Contact novella. And I am still working on more in The Dead Among Us and The Treasons Cycle, but I’ve pushed them to a back burner because of interest from a publisher in some of my other work.

You can read a little about all of these novels and novellas on the home page of this web site at https://www.jldoty.com.

So you’re probably wondering, “What does this all mean?”

Well, it means that in the next 1-2 years I’ll be publishing 5-6 novels and a novella.

When I know something more, I’ll send a brief update to my reader update list. If you're not already on it and want to sign up, or you want to update your information, you can do so here.

Now it's time for me to sit down and finish A Prayer for the Fallen, then I have to rewrite The Witch of Val d'Ossa, then there's the last book in The Dead Among Us, which I think is going to be titled No, Really, Dead Enough, and let's not forget York Ballin.